Social networks such as Twitter offer your small business the means to have an ongoing dialogue with customers throughout the year. Twitter provides a low-cost simple format for distributing information about a company such as business event updates, new products and services and job postings to a large audience rapidly. When you need to attract qualified applicants to fill a position quickly, you can advertise to your followers, as well as job hunters around the world, in a matter of minutes.

1. Prepare the job posting on your business website. If you plan to link to the posting from your Twitter account, copy the job page URL and then shorten it on a site such as Bitly, Moourl, Snipurl or TinyURL (links in Resources).

2. Sign in to your Twitter account and then click the “Compose New Tweet…” field to expand it.

3. Draft your job announcement tweet with the primary information you want to relay to your followers and the world. This should include your company name, the job type, job title, location, starting date and method that job seekers can use to request additional information or apply.

4. Add a hashtag – the "#" symbol – before keywords in the tweet that job seekers will likely use to search Twitter, such as job titles and locations. Add the word “job” to the listing with a hashtag and the method that your audience can acquire additional information. For example: “#job - #AYXMarketing needs full-time temporary #ExecutiveAssistant at our #NewYork office. Start June 2. For more info:” followed by “direct message me,” the shortened job page link, or a contact email address or phone number.

5. Click the “Tweet” button to distribute the job announcement.

6. Compose and distribute another tweet to provide additional information and request that your followers and anyone who reads the announcement help you to pass the word around by retweeting it. In addition, add hashtags for keywords again. For example, “EA out 3+ months. Need to fill position ASAP with qualified candidate. Please #RT - #job #AYXMarketing #ExecutiveAssistant #NewYork”

Tips

If you have difficulty filling a position, contact a social recruitment or job announcement distribution firm such as TwitJobSearch or TweetMyJobs (links in Resources) for assistance with targeting job hunters searching for jobs in your industry on Twitter.

Always check your job announcement tweets for errors before posting them. Twitter does not offer a tweet editing feature. If you find a mistake, correct the mistake in the second tweet or delete the original and start over.

Warning

Third-party recruitment and job distribution companies often charge a fee for their services.

About the Author

Based in Southern Pennsylvania, Irene A. Blake has been writing on a wide range of topics for over a decade. Her work has appeared in projects by The National Network for Artist Placement, the-phone-book Limited and GateHouse Media. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from Shippensburg University.